The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™ (176 page)

“Come along then,” cried the mob, cuffing and pulling the unfortunate stranger with them.

“Mercy, mercy!”

But it was useless to call for mercy to men whose superstitious feelings urged them on; far when the demon of superstition is active, no matter what form it may take, it always results in cruelty and wickedness to all.

Various were the shouts and menaces of the mob, and the stranger saw no hope of life unless he could escape from the hands of the people who surrounded him.

They had now nearly reached the ruins, and the stranger, who was certainly a somewhat odd and remarkable looking man, and who appeared in their eyes the very impersonation of their notions of a vampire, was thrust from one to the other, kicked by one, and then cuffed by the other, as if he was doomed to run the gauntlet.

“Down with the vampire!” said the mob.

“I am no vampire,” said the stranger; “I am new to these parts, and I pray you have mercy upon me. I have done you no wrong. Hear me—I know nothing of these people of whom you speak.”

“That won’t do; you’ve come here to see what you can do, I dare say; and, though you may have been hurt by the vampire, and may be only your misfortune, and not your fault, yet the mischief is as great as ever it was or can be, you become, in spite of yourself, a vampire, and do the same injury to others that has been done to you—there’s no help for you.”

“No help—we can’t help it,” shouted the mob; “he must die—throw him on the pile.”

“Put a stake through him first, though,” exclaimed the humane female; “put a stake through him, and then he’s safe.”

This horrible advice had an electric effect on the stranger, who jumped up, and eluded the grasp of several hands that were stretched forth to seize him.

“Throw him upon the burning wood!” shouted one.

“And a stake through his body,” suggested the humane female again, who seemed to have this one idea in her heart, and no other, and, upon every available opportunity, she seemed to be anxious to give utterance to the comfortable notion.

“Seize him!” exclaimed one.

“Never let him go,” said another; “we’ve gone too far to hang back now; and, if he escape, he will visit us in our sleep, were it only out of spite.”

The stranger made a dash among the ruins, and, for a moment, out-stripped his pursuers; but a few, more adventurous than the rest, succeeded in driving him into an angle formed by two walls, and the consequence was, he was compelled to come to a stand.

“Seize him—seize him!” exclaimed all those at a distance.

The stranger, seeing he was now nearly surrounded, and had no chance of escape, save by some great effort, seized a long piece of wood, and struck two of his assailants down at once, and then dashed through the opening.

He immediately made for another part of the ruins, and succeeded in making his escape for some short distance, but was unable to keep up the speed that was required, for his great exertion before had nearly exhausted him, and the fear of a cruel death before his eyes was not enough to give him strength, or lend speed to his flight. He had suffered too much from violence, and, though he ran with great speed, yet those who followed were uninjured, and fresher—he had no chance.

They came very close upon him at the corner of a field, which he endeavoured to cross, and had succeeded in doing, and he made a desperate attempt to scramble up the bank that divided the field from the next, but he slipped back, almost exhausted, into the ditch, and the whole mob came up.

However, he got on the bank, and leaped into the next field, and then he was immediately surrounded by those who pursued him, and he was struck down.

“Down with the vampire!—kill him—he’s one of ’em—run a stake through him!” were a few of the cries of the infuriated mob of people, who were only infuriated because he attempted to escape their murderous intentions.

It was strange to see how they collected in a ring as the unfortunate man lay on the ground, panting for breath, and hardly able to speak—their infuriated countenances plainly showing the mischief they were intent upon.

“Have mercy upon me!” he exclaimed, as he lay on the earth; “I have no power to help myself.”

The mob returned no answer, but stood collecting their numbers as they came up.

“Have mercy on me! it cannot be any pleasure to you to spill my blood. I am unable to resist—I am one man among many—you surely cannot wish to beat me to death?”

“We want to hurt no one, except in our own defence, and we won’t be made vampires of because you don’t like to die.”

“No, no; we won’t be vampires,” exclaimed the mob, and there arose a great shout from the mob.

“Are you men—fathers?—have you families? if so, I have the same ties as you have; spare me for their sakes—do not murder me—you will leave one an orphan if you do; besides, what have I done? I have injured no one.”

“I tell you what, friends, if we listen to him we shall all be vampires, and all our children will all be vampires and orphans.”

“So we shall, so we shall; down with him!”

The man attempted to get up, but, in doing so, he received a heavy blow from a hedge-stake, wielded by the herculean arm of a peasant. The sound of the blow was heard by those immediately around, and the man fell dead. There was a pause, and those nearest, apparently fearful of the consequences, and hardly expecting the catastrophe, began to disperse, and the remainder did so very soon afterwards.

CHAPTER LXXXI.

THE VAMPIRE’S FLI
GHT.—HIS DANGER, AND THE LAST PLACE OF REFUGE.

Leaving the disorderly and vicious mob, who were thus sacrificing human life to their excited passions, we return to the brothers Bannerworth and the doctor, who together with Admiral Bell, still held watch over the hall.

No indication of the coming forth of Varney presented itself for some time longer, and then, at least they thought, they heard a window open; and, turning their eyes in the direction whence the sound proceeded, they could see the form of a man slowly and cautiously emerging from it.

As far as they could judge, from the distance at which they were, that form partook much of the appearance and the general aspect of Sir Francis Varney, and the more they looked and noticed its movements, the more they felt convinced that such was the fact.

“There comes your patient, doctor,” said the admiral.

“Don’t call him my patient,” said the doctor, “if you please.”

“Why you know he is; and you are, in a manner of speaking, bound to look after him. Well, what is to be done?”

“He must not, on any account,” said Dr. Chillingworth, “be allowed to leave the place. Believe me, I have the very strongest reasons for saying so.”

“He shall not leave it then,” said Henry.

Even as he spoke, Henry Bannerworth darted forward, and Sir Francis Varney dropped from the window, out of which he had clambered, close to his feet.

“Hold!” cried Henry, “you are my prisoner.”

With the most imperturbable coolness in the world, Sir Francis Varney turned upon him, and replied—

“And pray, Henry Bannerworth, what have I done to provoke your wrath?”

“What have you done?—have you not, like a thief, broken into my house? Can you ask what you have done?”

“Ay,” said the vampire, “like a thief, perchance, and yet no thief. May I ask you, what there is to steal, in the house?”

By the time this short dialogue had been uttered, the rest of the party had come up, and Varney was, so far as regarded numbers, a prisoner.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, with that strange contortion of countenance which, now they all understood, arose from the fact of his having been hanged, and restored to life again. “Well, gentlemen, now that you have beleaguered me in such a way, may I ask you what it is about?”

“If you will step aside with me, Sir Francis Varney, for a moment,” said Dr. Chillingworth, “I will make to you a communication which will enable you to know what it is all about.”

“Oh, with pleasure,” said the vampire. “I am not ill at present; but still, sir, I have no objection to hear what you have to say.”

He stepped a few paces on one side with the doctor, while the others waited, not without some amount of impatience for the result of the communication. All that they could hear was, that Varney said, suddenly—

“You are quite mistaken.”

And then the doctor appeared to be insisting upon something, which the vampire listened to patiently; and, at the end, burst out with—

“Why, doctor, you must be dreaming.”

At this, Dr. Chillingworth at once left him, and advancing to his friends, he said—

“Sir Francis Varney denies in toto all that I have related to you concerning him; therefore, I can say no more than that I earnestly recommend you, before you let him go, to see that he takes nothing of value with him.”

“Why, what can you mean?” said Varney.

“Search him,” said the doctor; “I will tell you why, very shortly.”

“Indeed—indeed!” said Sir Francis Varney. “Now, gentlemen, I will give you a chance of behaving justly and quietly, so saving yourself the danger of acting otherwise. I have made repeated offers to take this house, either as a tenant or as a purchaser, all of which offers have been declined, upon, I dare say, a common enough principle, namely, one which induces people to enhance the value of anything they have for disposal, if it be unique, by making it difficult to come at. Seeing that you had deserted the place, I could make no doubt but that it was to be had, so I came here to make a thorough examination of its interior, to see if it would suit me. I find that it will not; therefore, I have only to apologise for the intrusion, and to wish you a remarkably good evening.”

“That won’t do,” said the doctor.

“What won’t do, sir?”

“This excuse will not do, Sir Francis Varney. You are, although you deny it, the man who was hanged in London some years ago for a highway robbery.”

Varney laughed, and held up his hands, exclaiming—

“Alas! alas! our good friend, the doctor, has studied too hard; his wits, probably, at the best of times, none of the clearest, have become hopelessly entangled.”

“Do you deny,” said Henry, “then, that you are that man?”

“Most unequivocally.”

“I assert it,” said the doctor, “and now, I will tell you all, for I perceive you hesitate about searching, Sir Francis Varney, I tell you all why it is that he has such an affection for Bannerworth Hall.”

“Before you do,” said Varney, “there is a pill for you, which you may find more nauseous and harder of digestion, than any your shop can furnish.”

As Varney uttered these words, he suddenly drew from his pocket a pistol, and, levelling it at the unfortunate doctor, he fired it full at him.

The act was so sudden, so utterly unexpected, and so stunning, that it was done before any one could move hand or foot to prevent it. Henry Bannerworth and his brother were the furthest off from the vampire; and, unhappily, in the rush which they, as soon us possible, made towards him, they knocked down the admiral, who impeded them much; and, before they could spring over, or past him, Sir Francis Varney was gone.

So sudden, too, had been his departure, that they had not the least idea in which direction he had gone; so that to follow him would have been a work of the greatest possible difficulty.

Notwithstanding, however, both the difficulty and the danger, for no doubt the vampire was well enough armed, Henry and his brother both rushed after the murderer, as they now believed him to be, in the route which they thought it was most probable he would take, namely, that which led towards the garden gate.

They reached that spot in a few moments, but all was profoundly still. Not the least trace of any one could be seen, high or low, and they were compelled, after a cursory examination, to admit that Sir Francis Varney had again made his escape, despite the great odds that were against him in point of numbers.

“He has gone,” said Henry. “Let us go back, and see into the state of poor Dr. Chillingworth, who, I fear, is a dead man.”

They hurried back to the spot, and there they found the admiral looking as composed as possible, and solacing himself with a pinch of snuff, as he gazed upon the apparently lifeless form at his feet.

“Is he dead?” said Henry.

“I should say he was,” replied the admiral; “such a shot as that was don’t want to be repeated. Well, I liked the doctor with all his faults. He only had one foolish way with him, and that was, that he shirked his grog.”

“This is an awful catastrophe,” said Henry, as he knelt down by the side of the body. “Assist me, some of you. Where is Charles?”

“I’ll be hanged,” said the admiral, “if I know. He disappeared somewhere.”

“This is a night of mystery as well as terror. Alas! poor Dr. Chillingworth! I little thought that you would have fallen a victim to the man whom you preserved from death. How strange it is that you should have snatched from the tomb the very individual who was, eventually, to take your own life.”

The brothers gently raised the body of the doctor, and carried it on to the glass plot, which was close at hand.

“Farewell, kind and honest-hearted Chillingworth,” said Henry; “I shall, many and many a time, feel your loss; and now I will rest not until I have delivered up to justice your murderer. All consideration, or feeling, for what seemed to be latent virtues in that strange and inexplicable man, Varney, shall vanish, and he shall reap the consequences of the crime he has now committed.”

“It was a cold blooded, cowardly murder,” said his brother.

“It was; but you may depend the doctor was about to reveal something to us, which Varney so much dreaded, that he took his life as the only effectual way, at the moment, of stopping him.”

“It must be so,” said Henry.

“And now,” said the admiral, “it’s too late, and we shall not know it at all. That’s the way. A fellow saves up what he has got to tell till it is too late to tell it, and down he goes to Davy Jones’s locker with all his secrets aboard.”

“Not always,” said Dr. Chillingworth, suddenly sitting bolt upright—“not always.”

Henry and his brother started back in amazement, and the admiral was so taken by surprise, that had not the resuscitated doctor suddenly stretched out his hand and laid hold of him by the ankle, he would have made a precipitate retreat.